over published

Prolific or pathetically eager for the least attention.

telling cover

There was a time in poetry publishing when you couldn’t just judge a book by its cover. Now it’s okay—no need to break open the book to read a poem or two before passing judgement.

forgive them

Forgive them, for they know not what they write.

dubious book promotion

Here’s some notable marketing copy by Wave Books:

"...Kearney presents a sustained consideration of precarious Black subjectivity, cultural production as self-defense, the transhistoric emancipatory logics of the preposition over, Anarcho-Black temporal disruption, and seriocomic meditations on the material and metaphysical nature of shadow."

Makes you want to buy the book, doesn't it?

poor po

To tweak a line from the Gospels, "The poor po will always be with us."

burst bubble

When the poetry bubble burst no one lost any money.

make it better

If poets were allowed to publish only 100 pages of poetry every ten years, one wonders if the overall art might be lifted by such a constraint.

file upload complete

They don’t curate, they don’t edit: Presses that will publish almost anything because print-on-demand technology demands so little of the publisher…just a good pdf file to upload.

fallen leaves

When I was raking leaves I started to think about all the poetry books published in the past year.

poetic asides

There are poems one wants to publish that aren’t the poems one wants to be known for.

supplied beyond demand

The modest demand for poetry books faces an amplest supply.

peep show

Publishing one’s poem is a way to be seen, but it’s a tiny peephole with nary an eye passing by.

paying for it

By the time he got his manuscript accepted, he figured he’d spent enough on entry and reading fees to have self-published the book in a first edition hardback of 1000 copies.

tenfold

The poet knew he was on his way when his book sold in the tens of tens.

unremunerated

“Penny for your thoughts,” I said to the pensive poet. “Sad,” he replied, “but that’s more than I made last year from my published work.”

wallpaper

So much of the poetry published online becomes just the unnoticed wallpaper of the web.

rescued and restored

Found on an acknowledgments page: The poem “Title Here” was published in an ill-advised version, based on an editor’s suggestions, in Lit Magazine. The poem has been restored to its original state in this volume.

written in sand

The poet thought he held his new poetry book in his hands, but as he read it turned into a handful of sand running through his fingers.

beyond print

It should be a source of pride to have written a good number of absolutely unpublishable poems.

too good for us

The honest editor sent a nice note rejecting my poem, stating that I must place it in a more prestigious journal, for the pages of his magazine would only drag the piece down.